Effective Volunteer Engagement:
Ethics in Volunteerism & Court-Ordered Community Service

Ethics in Volunteerism & Court-Ordered Community Service

• Court-ordered community service
  I have blogged about this regularly over the years, more than any other consultant or practitioner regarding volunteer engagement. I feel rather alone in talking about this, in fact - there seems to be a reluctance by organizations that promote volunteerism, by associations of managers of volunteers and by managers themselves to talk about people who undertake volunteer - UNPAID - service for nonprofits and charities. I explore the volunteering opportunities available to people sentenced to community service by the court, if virtual volunteering can be an option for them (it can), and how to best supervise and support people online in virtual volunteering roles.
   
  

• Ethics in volunteer engagement
  The only volunteer management consultant I ever heard address ethics in volunteer engagement in years' past was Mary Merrill. When we lost Mary, we lost a hugely important voice to discuss this topic. I've tried to start instigating discussions about ethics in volunteer engagement on my blog and on various online communities in which I participate. In addition, there are certain kinds of activities branded as “volunteering” that I find unethical and that I regularly research, blog about and talk about on social media:
   
  • Voluntourism, where unskilled Westerners go abroad to “volunteer” – usually for a fee – and do work that either isn’t something local people see as a priority or is something local people would like to be paid for, and there is no screening for the volunteers: whoever can pay the fee gets to go.
     
  • Paying to volunteer in any capacity in a program that seems to be more about giving an individual money than about actually serving a community or cause.
     
  • Companies that charge a fee for a letter that says a person engaged in volunteering that the person uses to fulfill court-ordered volunteering.
     
   
  
• Volunteer Bill of Rights – a commitment by a host organization to volunteers
  Should organizations put their commitment to the volunteers they involve in writing? Should they have a written statement that says they believe that volunteers have the right to work in a safe environment, to be treated with respect by all staff members, to be told what impact volunteer service has had on the community, to be trusted with confidential information necessary to carry out an assignment, to be kept informed about relevant matters within the organization, to expect that their time will not be wasted because of poor planning or poor coordination by the organization, etc.? Why wouldn't an organization make such a commitment? This blog explores reasons behind creating such a document at your organization and provides examples of such.
   
  

• I won't help you recruit a receptionist/volunteer coordinator
  Yes, I was asked to help do this. I refused.
   
  

• Learning From The 'Not-So-Nice' Volunteers: we have a lot to learn from the "not-so-nice volunteers", the people who are putting their time and energy into defending human rights, addressing social ills, and battling institutions who they feel are attacking their quality of life or an element of their community that they treasure. And we have a lot to learn from the people who manage such volunteers.
   
  

• Why Should the Poor Volunteer? It's Time To Re-Think the Answer
  Editorial: When volunteering is so often presented just one way -- as a state-sanctioned free labor activity -- reluctance and even hostility by the unemployed, the cash-strapped and the disenfranchised are completely justified. If governments and donors want volunteerism campaigns in poor communities to lead to more volunteering, they must radically update their message.
   
  

• The Value of Volunteers
  Involving volunteers because of a belief that they are cheaper than paying staff is an old-fashioned idea that's time should long-be-gone. It's an idea that makes those who are unemployed outraged, and that justifies labor union objections to volunteer engagement. This kind of valuation of volunteer service is called "replacement value of labor costs" - literally, volunteer service replacing the need to pay employees or consultants (labor). It's a misguided model fully embraced and promoted by the Points of Light Foundation and the United Nations.
   
  

• Ethics of paying to volunteer online
  It is not unusual, nor automatically unethical, for a program to charge people who want to participate as a volunteer in a program. This blog explores some of the reasons nonprofits ask volunteers to pay a fee - but it also explores what unreasonable fees look like and warns against nonprofits that are more concerned with making money that engaging volunteers for the right reasons. 
   
  

• Initiatives opposed to some or all volunteering (unpaid work), & online & print articles about or addressing controversies regarding volunteers replacing paid staff
  This is a list of organizations and initiatives opposed to some kinds of volunteering (unpaid work), or ALL kinds of volunteering, including unpaid internships at nonprofit organizations / charities. It is also a list of online and print articles about or addressing controversies regarding volunteers replacing paid staff. Most of the links are to initiatives or actions in Europe or the USA. It is not a comprehensive list, but it's meant to show just how pervasive - and, perhaps growing - the push back against volunteer engagement is. This list has been compiled to help researchers regarding volunteerism, as well as for policy makers and volunteerism advocates who want to avoid these kinds of controversies at nonprofit organizations and government agencies. This list is also compiled to refute those who believe that there are no such controversies (believe it or not, those people DO exist).. 
   
  

• Nonprofits & governments programs rejecting staff per social media activities
  In 2006 and 2008, there was a thread on the TechSoup Community forum that I think is worth saving. It took a while to find on archive.org, but I did! The original subject for this discussion was rejecting a volunteer per online activity/online profile, but it grew into talking about employees and candidates for employment as well. Here's most of the thread.
  
   
  
• The Pitfalls of Having a Program Sponsor
  (and suggestions for mission-based organizations on how to avoid them)
  For-profit companies, particularly large corporations, often sponsor specific programs at mission-based organizations (non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations/NGOs, civil society, school, etc.), providing funding, donated staff time, and in-kind equipment and services to help launch and maintain a program. In most ways, this is a blessing for the mission-based organization. But there are often hidden costs that lead to frustrations for everyone involved. This is a list of some of those hidden costs, and ways they can be avoided.
   
  

• Magical paychecks
  How paychecks don't somehow improve safety and confidentiality - in other words, employees aren't automatically safer, more responsible or better at adhering to confidentiality than volunteers.
   
  

• When to NOT pay interns
  The title is purposely provocative - read it before you write me to complain that I don't think interns should be paid.